About Assange.

I am royally pissed at him. What he did in the 2016 election was self-serving bullshit. He didn’t want Clinton elected because she vowed to extradite him, so he aided the Sentient Yam. Which is what will get him extradited.

Assange and Roger Stone and Don Jr. worked together on the release and timing of the DNC records. Assange and Don Jr. were communicating as late as July 2017. Assange was pressuring Don Jr. to be named Australian ambassador to the United States. There is so much shit buried in the Mueller report! Ugh.

But the charges levelled against him have nothing to do with any of that, and that concerns me, because the charges laid against him refer to the Chelsea Manning release of documents, and that is a big problem, because those charges are levelled against him doing work as a journalist, and as Americans, We. Can’t> Let. That. Stand.

My big concern is that the current administration will get their hands on him, and that will be the last we hear of him. But then again, I read somewhere that information is uncontrollable in the modern world. Let’s hope we’re not too post-modern yet. Or maybe that explains disinformation campaigns.

(I can’t find where I read about Stone’s case having classified components, because they relate to ongoing investigations. But the Assange portion of the paranoia comes from Empty Wheel. I haven’t chased down the rest of it, Schutte and Vault 7, because I need to use my brain for daily living.)

(Also, have you seen those pictures of Assange coming out of the embassy? This is what happens to you if you obsess about shit and never go outside. Go outside. Do something different. Shave, if you need to. Or at least comb your hair.)

Oh shit.

I haven’t written anything for a week. Again. Or is it two?

I’m taking a community ed writing class (see? I’m busy! I gots the excuse). I don’t know, we’re like four weeks in and I read for the first time on Tuesday, and I got done and the first comment was “Were you stoned when you wrote this?”

Probably won’t read again.

Anyway, all the news sucks and I hate what America is now, which for me is great because I can no longer bear the news and so I am doing Other Things. Do you remember books? Really. Too bad my attention span is about 14 seconds. But I’m trying! Currently, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens is barely holding my attention – but some of that is because there are so many ideas in it to seek out. Manichaeism!

I’m continuing to look at philosophy. I’ve been listening to Peter Adamson’s’ podcasts, but branched out when I wanted to think about Karl Marx and ended up at Panpsycast.  Funny thing: Adamson is american, teaching from King’s College (I think), so all these posh people come in for guest interviews; Panpsycast is a couple of weirdos with totally not posh accents, one of whom is teaching at a high school somewhere I think. Philosophy; not only for the elite! or something.

I lost the ramp in front of my house, which is where I was taking all the photos of things I’d made. I wonder if that is part of my slump? But I’m making again.

Top one? Bangles? So, so boring.Never. Again. Bottom one? Yes, it was oscillating. No, I have no patience. It’s better than it looks, the stone is green-blue, and it was also the first go-round. I have other ideas now.  The second bracelet shape came from thinking about a corral for the banglers. Well, I like it.

Finally, words for the wise; don’t let the crazy people set the agenda. (Also, this might be why people ask me if I’m stoned when I write.)

Downer stories. Move on. Save yourself.

“Chronic sorrow and disenfranchised grief.”

64 examples of disenfranchised grief

Chronic sorrow. 

Being alive can be hard.

Today. Hmpf.

Today started like a beautiful dream, I was in control, I had time, beautiful.

That shit’s over.

And the day proceeded, and it wasn’t bad, but I was bad, and eventually I succumbed. So, after a certain period of time where I gave voice to my current frustrations (Yeah. I yelled. I visciouslyvisciously  chopped onions and potatoes, but damn it I cooked dinner! and it wasn’t what I was going for but it was okay. And then I took an alprazolam, and did useful things, so we’re here now, and it’s okay now). Then I did things. Constructive, non-destructive things. I drilled a hole in the bottom of a flawed ceramic cup and divided my African violet and planted half in it, which is all make do and life affirming and stuff. I dug out two fountain pens, and tossed them into warm water to clean out the jams, prepping for a writing class that begins next week (starting a new class! A new notebook and everything! (I hope this is good. I hope it doesn’t turn out like Daughter’s writing class, where somebody wrote that it was okay  that the one kid died, because the other kid got better because Jesus, and maybe she misheard or maybe there was some deep level of Margaret Atwood going on, but I credit Daughter with clear vision.)

And then I picked up my current book and read:

Art was not an after-school special. Art was not motivational speaking. Art was not sentimental. It had no responsibility to be hopeful or optimistic or make anyone feel better about the world. It must reflect the world in all its brutality and beauty, not in hopes of changing it but in the mean and selfish desire to not be enrolled in its lie, to not be coopted by the television dreams, to not ignore the great crimes all around us.

Bam, motherfucker.

We were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Talking about hip-hop, and how it made him understand the power of words where he lived.

So maybe I’ll give you that happy happy story from this morning. Or maybe the other part. I don’t know. I just hope it’s true.

(ETA: Check out today’s Sinfest; http://sinfest.net/view.php?date=2019-03-08 . The Universe is speaking.)

More chick stuff.

AOC calls out WSJ.

Also, this thing called “Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez Derangement Syndrome”, or AOCDS, Which you can’t spell without OCD, or Old Coot’s Damage.

Also, I apologize to people who suffer with OCD. My anxiety levels are nearly disabling some days, so I’ve had a glimpse into that life. Ack.

My life? I’m taking an improv class. My first take-away? Introverts shouldn’t sign up for a class where the first rule is talking out loud right there in the middle of things. And jumping in. And being in the middle of things. But, my current operating paradigm is, “finish it,” which means not dropping out. It’s a small thing, in a small town. I can do it. Also, I realized part of my life is in a real-life version of Cicely, Alaska, which is a new and interesting perspective. The improv teacher is also a writing teacher, so I signed up for a class with her, so maybe I’ll post more here – if the class fills enough to run (yay lifetime learning!).

And speaking of finishing things, a list of the things that most need finishing; the comet wall hanging, that has been finished except for the border for four years? And the sweater, which is down to one sleeve. And a shirt, for which I bought the material and have the pattern and a pair of pants to wear with it and the yarn for the socks to go with it. But right now, today, is a good day for either running errands or taking a nap. Nap was winning, but the snowblower guy came through with enough noise to wake me up, so maybe it’s errands.

Beautiful sun, beautiful blue sky, beautiful white snow, and the unintended results of having a grapevine growing over the window attracting birds.

(I am decidedly in the minority in enjoying this winter. I’ve been able to just stay home if the weather is bad, which is a totally different experience.)

 

Trying to be “not-shrill” on Facebook

I would post this there, but it’s not really a place to go when you want someone to read more than six words. And because I’m just itching for that hemlock, I still have to post things.

So here’s a Twitter thread from some man, “explaining” that the NYT did a bang-up job of covering the 2016 campaign, and that while he maybe shouldn’t have used the word “cackle” (he can see now that maybe that was a gendered pejorative), really everything the paper did was A-Okay! I quote Patrick Healy, the man in question;

I’m proud of our 2016 coverage and our team. I don’t think we applied double standards to Clinton, but I’m mindful of the criticism.

This reply is a favorite!

There are many many more juicy bits.

I’m still angry.

ETA: Charles Pierce had a link to this guy Tomasky, and I like what he’s saying: https://www.thedailybeast.com/screw-uniting-the-country-thats-not-what-democrats-need-in-2020?source=twitter&via=desktop

And now for something . . .

From “Existential Comics” on facebook.

There’s a word for this.

Pulling my punches. Wearing grey. Backing down, and backing out. I’m not telling friends that their innocently shared meme is actually propaganda aimed at muting legitimate protest. My photography has, for the most part and for the past few months, sucked, wallowing in bleak conventionality.

Also, my counselor has been nagging me to drop all the negative self-talk.

Okay, negative self-talk; you asked for it.

I’m wearing grey – okay yeah, I’m wearing grey as camouflage. But it’s a statement! I swear! of assuming my crone power! Nah. Maybe I’m wearing grey because , as Counselor tells it, “I am reassessing my life and place in the world.” Or maybe I just like grey. I’ve been obsessing about green, too. It’s just a thing. Sheesh.

Backing down? No, using common sense. Good grief.

Not telling people that they’re being a tool of the opposition? Ooh, look. I have manners. Also. Good Grief. YOU ARE NOT THAT IMPORTANT YOU ARE NOT SOCRATES AND ANYWAY LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM YOU WOULD BE ALL CRY-EE AND WHINGY ABOUT GOING TO YOUR DEATH AND YOU KNOW IT! Best to avoid hemlock scenarios at all costs.

Also, bleak conventionality? That can be okay. You like your flower pictures, remember? Also, don’t worry so much about what people think about your photography. They aren’t paying you, and they will probably still like you if you don’t go in that particular direction.

Anyway. Your phone has a flash. It can be fun.

Or a Weapon of EEEEVIILLLLL. We’ll see.

Here I am, sitting in my chair.

I know this, because the first thing I knew when those cells in my proto-head condensed like a star forming from the dust of the first explosion was that these flailing bits and unidentified warblings and shiftings had an effect on me, and then that I could direct or at least modify these things, so all these flailing bits and mutterers define what I know, and I know these bits are all in turn defined by the shape of the chair, which has rockers, so I can rock.

My house sits at an angle to latitude and longitude, a line northeast to southwest. What I know is that the sun is shining, and that for a while direct sun was beaming into my kitchen window while nearly equally bright light was coming through my living room windows, shining off the snow. But now the sun has moved and the house-shadow is cast on the snow, and the living room isn’t as bright. The cat is in the bedroom window, and if I go in there, I can rub her sun-warmed belly fur, and we both will enjoy it.

The tip of my right index finger is cracked open, from eating bread, a conclusion drawn from observing cause and effect, a principle learned from those flailing bits. The only bit I know right now is that I can’t position my right hand on the keyboard without looking because the bandaid obstructs the tactile clue of that little bump, right there.

And all of this shows what language is, symbols with culturally accepted meanings, letting me condense years of flailing and muttering into something you can make a picture of. Which is amazing.

I’m listening to podcasts from the “History of Philosophy With Out Any Gaps.” My bucket list consists of two things; making it through the classical philosophy section – oh dear god i still have to muscle through aristotle – and finish this sweater. And this sweater will be full of so many things, sudden recognitions and decisions and confusion and maybe my mind is going? ripping out and re-knitting and stumbling through calculations that were bam!-it’s-done easy nine years ago, and maybe memory of a smell that is all attached to this winter, and it will join those other knitted things, the scarf of someone dying, a shawl of gritty determination, another of let’s pull all these things together and be the highly proficient artisan with both nups AND beads! and an hour of knitting per row there at the end, that still lingers unworn in a plastic bag waiting for its life to begin.

And now I’m sitting in my chair, thinking of all the knitted things that are placemarkers in my life. Huh.

(sweater is wasabi green, but that’s not all dramatic and stuff.)

I want to go deep.

I’m noticing a trend in my facebook postings and in what links I send to friends; a need for thoughtful conversation.

This is a long read from the Guardian, on trump’s ramshackle transition team. In the middle of it is a section on an organization trying to make young people see public service as an exciting choice.

There were hundreds of fantastically important success stories in the US government. They just never got told.

Stier knew an astonishing number of them. He had detected a pattern: a surprising number of the people responsible for them were first-generation Americans who had come from places without well-functioning governments. People who had lived without government were more likely to find meaning in it. On the other hand, people who had never experienced a collapsed state were slow to appreciate a state that had not yet collapsed.

You might know, but probably not, that I got support from TRIO while I was in college.I also participated in the McNair program, and even though I didn’t go on for higher degrees, I still think it was one of the more important things I did at college. And now this thought peters out, because I have no idea where to go, except that you should maybe watch where people who didn’t grow up with the fairly common privileges.

ProPublica has an article up: “I don’t want to shoot you, brother.” An officer is fired because he didn’t immediately shoot somebody that he thought was trying suicide by cop. The article contained information on how police departments train officers on the use of deadly force, and what arguments could be made both for and against shooting.

A Native kid was shot up here last year by a county cop, maybe suicide, maybe not. At the time, there was outrage and calls for investigation into racism in the department, and questions regarding the county sheriff and the veracity of the autopsy.  Reading the ProPublica article made me realize how little I know about police procedures, and how this information would be useful to citizens. Watching the vote verification for the midterms this year, I noticed that even though there was no one running against him (no penalty against him for not marking that oval on the ballot), he got a consistent share of the vote in all communities, including communities that I think have large Native populations.

And then there was the strange case of Ammon Bundy, who came out criticizing Trumpism for greed and cruelty and fear over the horror being enacted on the Mexico border.

I dunno. Time to sit and listen.

Cat, who demands that I make the bed the way she wants it.